FREE Email Newsletter

Sony Corp. says it plans to close a factory in central Japan, tweaking its restructuring plan by cutting 2,000 jobs from its workforce in moves expected to save it $385 million. The company's Minokamo factory, in Gifu prefecture, employs 840 people making lenses for digital cameras, lens blocks...

Apple lost its appeal of a UK court’s ruling that Samsung did not copy the iPad with its Galaxy tablet, Reuters reports. In July, Britain’s High Court ruled in favor of Samsung, explaining that Samsung’s Galaxy tablet, despite certain similarities, is simply “not as cool.”

KDDI Corp. said it will launch nine new smartphone models capable of a high-speed data communication service in Japan, a move likely to further intensify competition among mobile phone carriers to pursue better infrastructure. Of the nine models that are capable of using the LTE high-speed network, eight will hit the market on Nov. 2.

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said Wednesday that it will conduct an on-site inspection on Nov. 2 to confirm whether there is an active fault underneath the sole nuclear power plant operating in the quake-prone country. The outcome of the inspection at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi nuclear plant...

A Hong Kong media magnate highly critical of China is selling major media holdings in Taiwan to a group headed by a local businessman whose family has substantial interests on the mainland. A source at Hong Kong-listed Next Media Ltd. said Jimmy Lai would sell Next Media Entertainment Services Ltd.

Typhoon Prapiroon has been meandering in the western North Pacific Ocean over the weekend of Oct. 13 and 14, and NASA's TRMM satellite was able to identify where the strongest rainfall was occurring in the storm. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed directly above...

Despite current economic turbulence, European stocks rose and some Asian markets staged a comeback Monday as investors looked ahead to the release of U.S. earnings reports and Softbank's $20 billion deal for Sprint. Investors are also gearing up for another week of quarterly earnings on Wall Street...

Bonso Electronics International, Inc., a designer and manufacturer of sensor based products, reported the grand opening ceremony of its new manufacturing facility at Xinxing (Guangdong Province, China). Company services include product design and prototyping...

Nuclear power provided about a third of Japan's electricity before the 2011, accident at the Fukushima plant, and Japan had been planning to increase that to 50 percent. But last month, a Cabinet panel called for Japan to phase out nuclear power over the next three decades...

Telit Wireless Solutions, a leading global vendor of high-quality machine-to-machine (M2M) modules and value-added services, announced expansion with Beijing Yupont Electric Power Technology Co., a leading innovator in the Smart grid and Automated Meter Reading Segments.

Advanced Power Electronics Corp., a leading Taiwanese manufacturer of MOS power semiconductors for DC-DC power conversion applications, has updated two of its most popular PWM controllers to provide customers with space saving and more cost effective devices...

Toshiba Corp. is raising its stake in U.S. nuclear power unit Westinghouse Electric despite uncertainty about the future of the technology in Japan after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Public worries about atomic energy surged in Japan after the tsunami last year set off multiple meltdowns...

Taiwan is asking Apple Inc. to blur a map image of its new $1.4 billion early warning radar station that can detect aircraft and missiles coming from as far as western China. Defense Ministry spokesman David Lo said Tuesday that Apple should follow its rival Google in using only low-resolution...

Asia’s weakened demand for synthetic rubbers, commonly used in tire production, is expected to recover following this year’s drop in car production, says a new report from petrochemical experts GBI Research. The business intelligence firm’s latest research states that hunger for synthetic rubbers has been damaged...

Six Osprey hybrid aircraft were transferred to a U.S. base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on Monday — and were greeted by hundreds of protesters outside the fence showing their concern about the plane's safety. The aircraft — which takes off like a helicopter and flies like an airplane — flew safely from Iwakuni, on the Japanese main island, to U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Sony's new alliance with scandal-tarnished Olympus will focus on producing endoscopes and other surgical tools packed with the Japanese electronic maker's three-dimensional imaging and super-clear "4K" display technologies. Sony Corp. President Kazuo Hirai said it's not clear when the alliance's first products will become available.

In Japan and other overseas affiliates, Toyota will be leveraging a hybrid model, with on-premises editions of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Lync and Windows Server. Microsoft will help Toyota provide these services to more than 200,000 employees around the world during the next two years.

NEC Corp. has sold a liquid crystal display panel patent to Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. for 9.45 billion yen, NEC officials said. One of the officials said NEC has decided to secure revenues by selling the patent for displays of personal computers and mobile phones, rather than keeping it.

The plant operator, known as TEPCO, plans to remove 764 fuel assemblies inside the No. 4 reactor to the spent fuel pool located next to the reactor. It will also check whether there is damage inside the reactor by using an underwater camera. The Fukushima Daini complex, located about 12 kilometers south of the Daiichi plant.

UQM Technologies, Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding with a major Chinese company for the development and marketing of UQM electric propulsion systems for New Energy Vehicles in China. This agreement expands the global reach of UQM to four continents.

Magnasoft NorthStar, one of Asia’s leading location-based child safety platforms in the Amazon cloud has been named the 2012 Red Herring 100 Asia Award winner. NorthStar is an integrated child and school bus tracking and monitoring solution that improves safety and accountability for children while they travel to school and back.

Sony’s new alliance with scandal-tarnished Olympus will focus on producing endoscopes and other surgical tools packed with the Japanese electronic maker’s three-dimensional imaging and super-clear ‘‘4K’’ display technologies. Sony Corp. President Kazuo Hirai said it’s not clear when the alliance’s first products will become available.

Japan-based internet users who download copyright infringing files face up to two years in prison or fines of up to two million yen ($25,700; £15,900) after a change to the law. Such activity has been illegal since 2010, but until now had not invoked the penalties.